Skyscale rendered the Turtle Useless

[Zok.4956]

20 hours ago, Remus Darkblight.1673 said:

The only thing Skyscale does that no other mount can, is climbing walls.

 ... and hovering like a helicopter. You can see it at nearly every event. 😉

The devs have said at some point in the past that Skyscale's core moves are a combination of spider (crawling and jumping up walls) and helicopter (floating in the air). And the slow clunkiness was intentional so that there was sufficient distance from the other flying mount, the Griffon.

On the other hand: The turtle doesn't really have any such unique core movements, it never did. Its only uniqueness is that it is a two-player mount. Therefore, it was never really as popular in the open world as the other mounts from the start. The turtle shares a similar fate as the warclaw, which is practically non-existent in the open world and is only used in WvW because all other mounts are not allowed there.

I don't agree with the thread creator that Skyscale rendered the turtle useless, but I think it's a shame that Anet didn't manage to make the turtle more attractive/better from the start. There were enough ideas (including from players).

[Trejgon.9367]

7 hours ago, blp.3489 said:

But the turtle slam has a 4.5s cooldown while my impression is that you can spit a fireball every second or so, maybe faster.  You can use the invigorating something or other skill to avoid the cooldown after using your stack of shots so you can fire quite a few shots in a row.  So the damage/second isn't as different as the single skill damage numbers would indicate.

Fireball has charges limitation, and the charge recovery is much much slower than the recovery from the slam. When it comes to the gate in Nayos meta, that alone has enought hp for turtle to easilly outperform the skyscale's fireball. Not sure about other intances where siege damage is involved, didn't try to test it there quite yet.

[Remus Darkblight.1673]

Oops quoted myself 😂

Edited November 17, 2023 by Remus Darkblight.1673
I struggle with basic tasks

[Healix.5819]

6 hours ago, Lord Trejgon.2809 said:

Fireball has charges limitation, and the charge recovery is much much slower than the recovery from the slam. When it comes to the gate in Nayos meta, that alone has enought hp for turtle to easilly outperform the skyscale's fireball. Not sure about other intances where siege damage is involved, didn't try to test it there quite yet.

The door is usually down before I run out of charges, and you can weave in a blast dismount if you need filler. The trick with fireball is you can attack at range and stay out of combat, which allows you to do more damage.

[idpersona.3810]

9 minutes ago, Healix.5819 said:

The door is usually down before I run out of charges, and you can weave in a blast dismount if you need filler. The trick with fireball is you can attack at range and stay out of combat, which allows you to do more damage.

Wouldn't those crits be just and high comparatively as from the turtle mount?

I think it'll be worthwhile to do some actual testing on the siege damage comparison. I feel like (and haven't tested it), all things being equal the turtle is still going to come out ahead.

 

[Trejgon.9367]

16 minutes ago, Healix.5819 said:

The door is usually down before I run out of charges, and you can weave in a blast dismount if you need filler. The trick with fireball is you can attack at range and stay out of combat, which allows you to do more damage.

Then you are either somehow always running with alot more players in it I ever saw, or arrive very late - 10 charges can be dispensed in a very quick way and that wall has alot of hp. Personally all the time I was there for when door become siegable, I empty out all 10 charges before the doors hit the 50% even. After that is bond of vigor recovery, for additional 5 charges, and then very uneven distribution of charges recovering.

Additional notes: you are not getting mechanically out of combat, because you are constantly delivering a damage, and game considers that putting you in combat with the gate, and for practical application, the "fight" stage on the land ends before gate becomes siegable in the first place. If there is any fight left to stay away from by the tiem siege opens, then your group somehow failed to murder stragglers.

There is no mechanical bonus to damage for "staying out of combat" and again, if there was sieging the door does put you into combat, therefore you would not be getting it on Skyscale vs Turtle.

9 minutes ago, idpersona.3810 said:

Wouldn't those crits be just and high comparatively as from the turtle mount?

I think it'll be worthwhile to do some actual testing on the siege damage comparison. I feel like (and haven't tested it), all things being equal the turtle is still going to come out ahead.

 

Considering the difference between base damage of respective abilities, and scaling factors, those crits would have been much higher on turtle slams, all else being equal (same stats/buffs going on)

[idpersona.3810]

10 minutes ago, Lord Trejgon.2809 said:

Considering the difference between base damage of respective abilities, and scaling factors, those crits would have been much higher on turtle slams, all else being equal (same stats/buffs going on)

Sorry, yea that's more or less what I meant. 18k crits on fireballs should be about 70k+ crits from the turtle. So I don't think that screen cap alone is much to go on.

Edited November 17, 2023 by idpersona.3810

[Zera.9435]

The funny thing is, I got my turtle but I've NEVER used it in actual gameplay. I've hopped on the turtles of others to fire the gun, bu that's it. Turtle is just... useless to me. I only got it for the mastery points. That's it. Proud member of Club (currently) 530.

[Zok.4956]

On 11/17/2023 at 4:31 PM, Remus Darkblight.1673 said:

Oops quoted myself 😂

Did you agree or disagree with yourself? 😂

[idpersona.3810]

On 11/17/2023 at 3:33 PM, Zera.9435 said:

The funny thing is, I got my turtle but I've NEVER used it in actual gameplay. I've hopped on the turtles of others to fire the gun, bu that's it. Turtle is just... useless to me. I only got it for the mastery points. That's it. Proud member of Club (currently) 530.

I also don't use my turtle, generally, but I like having all the mounts unlocked. I mostly got it for the HP bonus to the other mounts.

[Remus Darkblight.1673]

On 11/18/2023 at 6:34 PM, Zok.4956 said:

Did you agree or disagree with yourself? 😂

I meant to edit my post but clicked the wrong button. 😳

[Caitmonster.9036]

On 11/15/2023 at 3:54 PM, Tuna Bandit.3786 said:

Heck even the flame beacon event in newest Meta is ruled by Griffon enthousiasts.

You call it 'ruined', I call it 'a fun way to run an otherwise completely mundane relay race event'. 😝